By Faith The Heroes Achieved

“All these people were still living by faith when they died.”

~Hebrews 11:13a (NIV).

The pull of faith is much more powerful than any of us readily realise. It’s the search lifelong for something that is bound not to be found—in the ultimate sense—in this lifetime. It’s a destiny beyond the shores of our present reality—without means of getting there beyond death itself. And, yet, it is this life that delivers us that one.

By Faith...

It is by faith that all the heroes of faith achieved. They gave their lives away on the hope of a promise, and yet none of them achieved the promise in their lifetimes... “they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.”

They did not commence their bold acts of faith with the hope of achieving the promise. They obeyed God.

Their belief was such that God’s wish was their simple command—willingly and gleefully accepted. This is a wholly-diligent faith that pleases God (Hebrews 11:6).

Their belief was that God had prepared a better land for them; a city of God (Hebrews 11:16).

By faith the heroes of faith achieved not what worldly people would consider an achievement. They achieved on a God-scale, which is measured on a different continuum, an entire realm of its own.

Their achievements are counted significant in heaven.

And This Means For Us?

Faith will take us higher than anything else. It takes us beyond ourselves, to on the one hand scare us—as we look back over our shoulders—or on the other, to have us asking, “Where to next, God?”

Faith is the absolute abandonment of the things of this world if they constrain us—for things entirely better... the unseen, unheard, still silent whisper of the Lord, our God—as echoed through the ages into our unique heart perspective.

It is our opportunity to take hold of that thing that all our hearts truly yearn for—to have found it, having searched for it—that thing that is nothing really of us, but a passion all its own.

Passion at the end is the unique difference. This welling passion will carry us faithfully all the way to our deaths—pleased to go all the way in this faithful pursuit and call that God calls us heavenward for.

© 2010 S. J. Wickham.